Ryzen 3000, Booting Linux, and You

I found some explanations of this bug:
https://linuxreviews.org/AMD_Ryzen_3000_series_CPUs_can't_do_Random_on_boot_causing_Boot_Failure_on_newer_Linux_distributions
https://www.golem.de/news/linux-abstuerze-fehlerhafter-zufallsbefehl-auf-neuen-und-alten-amd-cpus-1907-142433.html (German)

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Alpine Linux is superb on a server or as a container .

For a desktop without systemd a good alternative is Artix Linux (Arch with openrc)

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Jokes on you! All my distros are ubuntu 18.04 / 16.04 based! Also I don’t own Ryzen 3000 (…yet…)

AMD just confirmed the negative integer issue will be solved in a BIOS/AGESA update.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-Releases-Linux-Zen2-Fix

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I’ve tested the RDRAND on Windows 10, and heres my result:

On a laptop with 2500u:

On a desktop with 3700x:

So I guess it’s probably neither a problem with systemd nor the linux kernel, but a problem with the processor itself (or the bios / firmware).

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Wow.

I was going to ask if 3000 was good yet. Been looking at a 3750u for a bit.

Guess not lel.

Check the ryzen 3000 mega thread. Wendell said that their were issues that were caused by the bios.

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and it is resolved now, updated bioses have already started dropping.

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Any release-notes that can be shedding light on the issue itself?

Rdrand would sometimes return carry flag as if the random number was random but it was not actually random. Also affected destiny 2 on windows

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3750H is not Zen 2, it’s Zen+ still. That’s immune from this bug.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that as it turns out

I haven’t been able to get manjaro to load yet, I saw a post on reddit that updating systemd to 242.32-3 worked for someone. I threw in my 1600 and updated, but still not booting. Any ideas what I should try next?

You gotta wait for the BIOS update. It’s VERY slowly reaching the vendors and only Gigabyte boards have the fix right now.

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Got pulled it seems.

Some bugs yeah. If you boot in to another os and init the rng you can reboot into Linux fine haha. Prolly why automated testing didn’t catch it

I think AMD said that they mostly just tested with Ubuntu 18.04

I bought a Dell Inspiron 5585 (Ryzen 3700u.) It runs great with Windows, which is no small feat, so I was chomping at the bit to Install the KDE spin of Fedora. I tried disabling TPM/Secure Boot and enabling all the legacy boot options along with creating the Linux Live USB with every possible combination of MBR/GPT and ISO/DD only to receive a kernel panic every time. I tried the same stuff with Linux Mint Cinnamon and got the same results. I hope this gets fixed soon so I can use my laptop. I refuse to use Windows unless I absolutely have to for work/school. :sob:

I bought a Dell Inspiron 5585 (Ryzen 3700u.) It runs great with Windows, which is no small feat, so I was chomping at the bit to Install the KDE spin of Fedora. I tried disabling TPM/Secure Boot and enabling all the legacy boot options along with creating the Linux Live USB with every possible combination of MBR/GPT and ISO/DD only to receive a kernel panic every time. I tried the same stuff with Linux Mint Cinnamon and got the same results.

You might need some kernel boot parameters. The E595 thread might help: